Hitler

by Peter Longerich

73. This is clear from a message from Reich governor Greiser to Himmler of 1 May 1942, in which he refers to the ‘special treatment’ agreed at the time. See Longerich, Himmler, 563f.

  74. Peter Klein, Die ‘Ghettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt’ 1940–1944. Eine Dienstelle im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kommunalbürokratie und staatlicher Verfolgungspolitik (Hamburg, 2009), 437ff.; Michael Alberti, Die Verfolgung und Vernichtung der Juden im Reichsgau Wartheland 1939–1945 (Wiesbaden, 2006), 400ff.

  75. Longerich, Himmler, 563ff.

  76. Dienstkalender, 13 October 1941; for details see Longerich, Himmler, 565.

  77. Dienstkalender, 14 December 1941; BAB, NS 19/1583, Brack to Himmler, 23 June 1942; Patricia Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen. T4-Täter und die “Aktion Reinhardt” ’, in Bogdan Musial (ed.), ‘Aktion Reinhardt’. Der Völkermord an den Juden im Generalgouvernement 1941–1944 (Osnabrück, 2004), 295.

  78. If Z, 365-NO, Wetzel to Lohse, 25 October 1941; see Andrej Angrick and Peter Klein, Die ‘Endlösung’ in Riga. Ausbeutung und Vernichtung 1941–1944 (Darmstadt, 2006), 338ff.

  79. Christian Gerlach, ‘Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia’, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11/1 (1997), 60–78. In November 1941 the SS ordered the construction of a large crematorium, which suggests plans for the construction of a large extermination camp. In fact, the ovens were delivered to Auschwitz in 1942.

  80. Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944. Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (Munich, 1996), 140ff.

  The Winter Crisis of 1941/42

  1. Klink, ‘Heer’, 663; Reinhardt, Wende, 82f.

  2. Ibid., 84f.; OKH Directives of 27 and 30 October 1941, Source: BAF, KTB AG Centre C. On 19 October he had advocated the withdrawal of the 2nd Panzer Army to the south, but had then given way to Bock’s concerns (ibid., 85f., see KTB AG Centre, 19 and 28 October 1941).

  3. Reinhardt, Wende, 82.

  4. ADAP D 13, Nos 433 and 424.

  5. Reinhardt, Wende, 73.

  6. Wagner, Generalquartiermeister, 20 October.

  7. Reinhardt, Wende, 86.

  8. Meldungen, 8, 2927f.; see also Goebbels TB, 4 November 1941.

  9. Ibid., 11 January 1942; see also 24 November and 7 December 1941 and 3 January 1942.

  10. Ibid., 7 November 1941.

  11. Ibid., 5 January 1942. For the change in the propaganda line see Longerich, Goebbels, 495ff.

  12. Domarus, 2, 1771ff.; on the speech see Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 586f.

  13. Domarus, 2, 1771ff., quotes 1773f. and 1778.

  14. Goebbels TB, 4 November 1941.

  15. Ibid., 22 November 1941.

  16. The German press was instructed to regard the article as the official propaganda line. See BAK, ZSg. 102/35, 6 November 1941, 13.

  17. VB (B), 9 November 1941, ‘Wann oder Wie’.

  18. Goebbels TB, 22 November 1941.

  19. Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 587f.; Goebbels TB, 10 November 1941, with detailed comments.

  20. See also ibid., 4 November 1941.

  21. For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 191f.

  22. Joseph Goebbels, Das eherne Herz. Rede vor der Deutschen Akademie, gehalten am 1. Dezember 1941 in der Neuen Aula der Friedrich-Wilhelm Universität zu Berlin (Munich and Berlin, 1941). The passage concerning the ‘annihilation’ of the Jews is on p. 35.

  23. Engel, Heeresadjutant, 2, 16, 22, and 24 November 1941.

  24. Halder, KTB, 3, 19 November 1941.

  25. Reinhardt, Wende, 115.

  26. Halder, KTB, 3, 10 November 1941.

  27. KTB OKW 1, 1074f.

  28. Klink, ‘Heer’, 677ff.; Reinhardt, Wende, 126ff.

  29. Ibid., 136f.

  30. Ibid., 144ff.

  31. Klink, ‘Heer’, 685ff.

  32. Ibid., 615f.

  33. Ibid., 622.

  34. Koeppen, Herbst, 26 October 1941.

  35. Goebbels TB, 11 and 13 November 1941.

  36. Halder, KTB, 3, 19 November 1941.

  37. Goebbels TB, 30 November 1941.

  38. Klink, ‘Heer’, 685ff.

  39. Ibid., 618ff.

  40. Halder, KTB, 3, 30 November and 1 December 1941; on the dismissal see also the euphemistic account in Goebbels TB, 17 December 1941.

  41. Domarus, 2, 1787f.; Halder, KTB, 3, 3 December 1941; Klink, ‘Heer’, 620.

  42. Ibid., 686; Halder, KTB, 3, 6 December 1941.

  43. Hoffmann, ‘Kriegführung’, 915f.

  44. Ibid., 909ff.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 689ff.; Reinhardt, Wende, 197ff.

  45. Halder, KTB, 3, 7 December 1941; Engel, Heeresadjutant, 6 December 1941: ‘Trust between F. and the commanders-in-chief can no longer be repaired’. See Klink, ‘Heer’, 687.

  46. Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen.

  47. Halder, KTB, 3, 7 December 1941; Dienstkalender, 7 December 1941.

  48. ADAP D 13, Nos 480, 486–488, and 492.

  49. Ibid., No. 512. On the extension of the war at the end of 1941 see Friedländer, Auftakt; Eberhard Jäckel, ‘Die deutsche Kriegserklärung an die Vereinigten Staaten von 1941’, in Friedrich J. Kroneck and Thomas Oppermann, Im Dienste Deutschlands und des Rechts. Festschrift für Wilhelm G. Grewe zum 70. Geburtstag am 16. Oktober 1981 (Baden-Baden, 1981), 117–32; Herde, Italien; Weinberg, Welt, 274ff.

  50. IMT 35, 656-D, 320ff.; Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 128, disputes its authenticity.

  51. This is the argument in Herde, Italien, 77.

  52. ADAP D 13, No. 537. The demarche to the German government mentioned here has not survived. For the reconstruction of this document, which was given to Ribbentrop on 1 or 2 December 1941, see ibid., 767.

  53. Ibid., No. 546.

  54. Jäckel, ‘Kriegserklärung’, 137.

  55. There were an increasing number of indications in Berlin before the attack began: Ambassador Ott (Tokyo) informed the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on 5 December that the Japanese foreign ministry was coming to the conclusion that ‘for domestic political reasons a declaration of a state of war with, or a declaration of war on, America simultaneously with, or after the start of, hostilities was unavoidable’. See ADAP D 13, No. 545, arrival on 6 December, at 12.55.

  56. Domarus, 2, 1794ff.; Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 599ff.

  57. For the text of the agreement see Domarus, 2, 1809f. See also ADAP D 13, No. 577.

  58. On Goebbels see above, p. 779. On Rosenberg’s press conference of 18 November 1941 see Wilhelm, Rassenpolitik, 131ff., see PAA, Pol XIII, 25, VAA-Reports; see the report of a press reporter published in Jürgen Hagemann, Presselenkung im Dritten Reich (Bonn, 1970), 146.

  59. Two days after Hitler’s speech Rosenberg discussed with Hitler the text of a speech he wanted to make a few days later in the Sportpalast (IMT 27, 1517-PS, 270ff.). Both concluded that Rosenberg should alter an anti-Semitic passage in it and no longer – as he had done a few days before – speak of the ‘extermination of the Jews’. However, the softening of the language was purely a matter of propaganda, presumably because further anti-Semitic threats to the United States were considered counter-productive so soon after the declaration of war. Hitler emphasized to Rosenberg his basic position that ‘they had imposed the war on us and they had brought about all the destruction; it was not surprising if they were the first to feel its consequences’.

  60. When, on 18 December 1941, Himmler visited Hitler to agree on what further action he should take on the ‘Jewish question’, he noted the words: ‘exterminate them as partisans’ (Dienstkalender). This specifically authorized Himmler to carry out and extend the mass murder of the Soviet Jews under the pretext of ‘combatting partisans’.

  61. In January Hitler appeared to Goebbels as far as the ‘Jewish question’ was concerned as ‘consistent’, not ‘inhibited by bourgeois sentimentality’. Berlin and then the whole of the Reich territory should be ‘cleared as soon as possible’. ‘What happens to them then doesn’t interest us in the least. They sough
t this fate; they started the war to achieve it and now they must pay the price’. See Goebbels TB, 18 January, and 20 January 1942.

  62. I consider Christian Gerlach’s claim in ‘Die Wannsee-Konferenz, das Schicksal der deutschen Juden und Hitlers politische Grundentscheidung, alle Juden Europas zu ermorden’, in Werkstatt Geschichte 6/18 (1997), 7–44, that this speech represented Hitler’s announcement of his fundamental decision to murder the European Jews is too far-reaching an interpretation, although the speech undoubtedly had an important effect in further radicalizing Jewish persecution.

  63. Goebbels TB, 13 December 1941.

  64. Hillgruber (ed.), Staatsmänner 1, 357ff.

  65. Reinhardt, Wende, 219ff.; KTB OKW 1, 1083; Halder, KTB, 3, 15 December 1941.

  66. KTB OKW 1, 1084f.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 696.

  67. KTB OKW 1, 1084f.

  68. According to an entry in KTB AG Centre, 16 December 1941, according to a statement by Schmundt. See Johannes Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer. Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Munich, 2006), 325; this was already the assessment of Reinhardt, Wende, 223.

  69. Excerpt from KTB AG Centre, 16 December 1941, published in Reinhardt, Wende, Appendix IV; Bock, Pflicht, 349ff. Bock had already described this problem to Brauchitsch on 13 December 1941 (ibid.). See also Reinhardt, Wende, 219ff.; Hürter, Heerführer, 318ff.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 695ff.

  70. KTB AG Centre, 16 December 1941, published in Reinhardt, Wende, Appendix IV; Bock, Pflicht, 354.

  71. Halder, KTB, 3, 16 December 1941.

  72. Klink, ‘Heer’, 697.

  73. See Halder, KTB, 3, 10 November and 5 December 1941; Engel, Heeresadjutant, 6 and 7 December 1941; Klink, ‘Heer’, 697f.; on Hitler’s announcement of the change in the high command see Domarus, 2, 1813. During the following months, Hitler referred to Brauchitsch on several occasions in conversation with Goebbels in the most contemptuous terms, accusing him of being mainly to blame for the winter crisis. See Goebbels TB, 20 January, 20 March, and 24 August 1942.

  74. Ibid., 8 September 1941; on Hitler’s increasingly critical attitude to Brauchitsch see also 24 September 1941.

  75. On the changes see Hürter, Heerführer, 601f.

  76. Falkenhorst, Wehrmacht commander in Norway, was effectively replaced as commander of the forces in north Finland and ordered back to Oslo through the creation, on 27 December, of a new Army High Command Lapland under General Dietl. See Ueberschär, ‘Kriegführung’, 988. Hitler told Goebbels already in mid-November about the impending replacement of Leeb and the dismissal of Brauchitsch. See Goebbels TB, 18 December 1941.

  77. Engel, Heeresadjutant, 22 November and 7 December 1941; according to this, this proposal had originally come from Schmundt.

  78. KTB OKW 1, 1085; see also Halder, KTB, 3, 20 December 1941; similarly, also Hitler’s directive to AG Centre, 20 December 1941, in Jacobsen, Weg, 134f., quoted extensively in Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 608f.

  79. Guderian, Erinnerungen, 240ff.; Halder, KTB, 3, 26 December 1941. Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 609f.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 699 and 702.

  80. Hoffman, ‘Kriegführung’, 916ff.

  81. Halder, KTB, 3, 29 December 1941

  82. Heiner Mõllers, ‘Sponeck. Hans Emil Otto Graf von’, in Neue Deutsche Biographie 24 (2010), 736f.

  83. Halder, KTB, 3, 15 January 1942: ‘Strauss can’t go on any longer’; Hürter, Heerführer, 664f.

  84. Klink, ‘Heer’, 708.

  85. According to Heinrich Bücheler, Hoepner. Ein deutsches Soldatenschicksal des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Herford, 1980), 166ff.; see Hürter, Heerführer, 336f.

  86. Halder, KTB, 3, 19 January 1942; Hürter, Heerführer, 340.

  87. Ibid., 327; assessment in Reinhardt, Wende, 221: The order to hold the line was ‘the only feasible solution’ but was ‘carried out in a rigid and uncompromising way’. Klink, ‘Heer’, 703, writes of the end of the mission-type tactics in the German army.

  88. Goebbels TB, 20 January 1942.

  89. Klink, ‘Heer’, 704ff., on the rearguard actions of AG Centre.

  90. See Halder, KTB, 3, 30 December 1941–14 January 1942 on the – in some cases – very heated discussions between the c-in-c of the AG, Kluge, and Hitler, who kept insisting on holding the front line.

  91. KTB OKW 2, 1268f.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 707; Reinhardt, Wende, 246ff.

  92. Klink, ‘Heer’, 712ff., on the rearguard actions of AG North.

  93. Ibid., 727ff., on the defensive actions of AG South.

  94. At the beginning of December, the Wehrmacht reports were still noting place names, encouraging optimism (Wehrmachtberichte, 1, 1 December 1941: ‘Rostovarea’, ditto 2 and 3 December 1941: ‘front in front of Moscow’), but were then largely restricted to bland or suggestive statements about ‘local clashes’ and planned ‘shortening of the front’ (for example 8 and 17 December 1941). Only from mid-January onwards are there occasional mentions of place names, which were intended to dispel rumours of a much more substantial retreat: 13 January ‘east of Kharkov’, 3 February, ‘north-east of Taganrog’.

  95. See, in particular Meldungen, 8, 3043, 3059f., and 3069f. After Japan’s entry into the war became for a time a talking point, concern about the war came to predominate during December and January, as the SD reports testify. The reports from the Reich propaganda offices quoted by Goebbels are similarly negative. See Goebbels TB, 3 and 16 January 1942. See also Kershaw, Hitler-Mythos, 216f.

  96. Goebbels TB, 14 and 19 December 1941.

  97. Goebbels, Herz, 131–7; on the winter clothes collection see also OA Moscow, 1363–3, Conference of Ministers, 20–22 December 1941.

  98. Domarus, 2, 1815.

  99. Führer decree for the Protection of the Collection of Winter Clothing for the Front, 23 December 1941 (RGBl. 1941 I, 797).

  100. Goebbels TB, 2 January 1942.

  101. VB (M), 12 and 15 January 1942.

  102. Meldungen, 9, 3120 and 3151. For further material on the negative effect of the announcement see Kershaw, Hitler-Mythos, 216.

  103. See Feuersenger, Kriegstagebuch, 90.

  104. Goebbels TB, 28 December 1941.

  105. Ibid., 5, 8, 12, and 15 January 1942.

  106. Longerich, Goebbels, 502f.

  107. Since December the topic of the eastern front was played down significantly in the VB; instead, prominence was given to the situation in East Asia. It was only on 23 February 1942 that the VB once again had a headline about the eastern front.

  108. Werner Rahn, ‘Der Krieg im Pazifik’, in Horst Boog et al. (eds), Der globale Krieg. Die Ausweitung zum Weltkrieg und der Wechsel der Initiative 1941–1943 (Stuttgart, 1990), esp. 237ff. On the press reporting see DAZ and VB, in which, during the first weeks of January, East Asia dominated the headlines.

  109. See Wehrmachtberichte, 2, 1 and 19 (Feodosia), 7 (Kharkov), and 15 January 1942 (Taganrog).

  110. Reinhard Stumpf, ‘Der Krieg im Mittelmeerraum 1942/43. Die Operationen in Nord-Afrika und im mittleren Mittelmeer’, in Boog et al. (eds), Krieg, 573ff., on the military situation. For propaganda directives on the offensive see BAK, ZSg. 102/36, 24 January 1942, TP 1. The VB (B) made a big thing of Rommel’s successes on 25, 26, and 30 January; the DAZ on 26 January; Das Reich had a double-page spread on 25 January 1942 (‘Rommels klassisches Beispiel’). On the Rommel propaganda see Maurice Philip Remy, Mythos Rommel (Munich, 2002), 85ff.; Ralf Georg Reuth, Rommel. Das Ende einer Legende (Zurich and Munich, 2004), 150ff.

  111. Goebbels TB, 24 and 25 January 1942; OA Moscow, 1363–3, Conference of Ministers, 26, 27, and 30 January, and 4 February 1942.

  112. Meldungen, 9, 3233ff. and 3262f.

  113. On the speech see Domarus, 2, 1826ff., quotes 1827, 1829, 1832, and 1834, emphases in the original.

  114. Meldungen, 9, 3235.

  115. This interpretation of the Wannsee conference follows the account in Longerich, Politik, 466ff. (updated in the revised English version, Holocaust, 305ff.). See also Norbert Kampe and Peter Klein (eds),
Die Wannsee-Konferenz am 20. Januar 1942. Dokumente, Forschungsstand, Kontroversen, (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna, 2013).

  116. Goebbels TB, 15 February 1942.

  117. Domarus, 2, 1843ff.

  The Pinnacle of Power

  1. Goebbels TB, 13, similarly 15 February 1942.

  2. Ibid., 14 and 15 February 1942.

  3. Salewski, Seekriegsleitung, 2, 1ff.

  4. For the gradual improvement in the situation on the eastern front from the German perspective see Klink, ‘Heer’, 685ff.

  5. Halder, KTB, 3, 18 February 1942; Klink, ‘Heer’, 720.

  6. BAK, ZSg. 102/36, 22 February 1942; see press reports, for example, VB (B), 23 February 1942, ‘Zur Lage im Osten’.

  7. Meldungen, 9, 3233ff., 3262ff., 3273f., 3294f., 3314f., 3336ff., 3349f., 3365f., 3392ff., and 3408ff. During the following period, concern about the eastern front was replaced with worries about food supplies. The Goebbels diaries convey a similar picture based on the reports of the Reich propaganda offices (20 and 26 February, 12 and 19 March 1942).

  8. On 6 April the meat ration was cut from 1,600 to 1,200 grams per day. See Schmitz, Bewirtschaftung, 466, Table.

  9. Meldungen, 10, 3566ff. (mixed picture), 3595ff. (gradually increasing confidence), 3613ff. (relatively confident), 3626ff. (mixed mood), 3638ff. (winter’s wait-and-see attitude overcome) and 3659ff. (mixed).

  10. Domarus, 2, 1848ff., quote 1850.

  11. See Hitler’s speech on Ganzenmüller’s appointment as state secretary in the Transport Ministry, 24 May 1942: Willi A. Boelcke (ed.), Deutschlands Rüstung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942–1945 (Frankfurt a. M., 1969), 126ff. See also Picker, Tischgespräche, 21 May 1942; Ciano, Diary, 29 April–2 May 1942; Hillgruber (ed.), Staatsmänner, 2, esp. 44.

  12. Goebbels TB, 20 March 1942.

  13. Reinhardt, Wende, 107ff.; Müller, ‘Mobilisierung’, 567ff.; Eichholtz, Geschichte, 2, 11ff.

  14. ‘Führer-Erlasse’, No. 124.

  15. BAB, R 43 II/670a, Bormann to Lammers, 15 October 1941; If Z, 194-EC, Keitel directive, 31 October 1941. The conditions for the ‘labour deployment’ of the POWs and the ‘voluntary’ workers from the Soviet Union were regulated by Göring’s guidelines of 7 November (IMT 27, 1193-PS, 56ff.).